Inglewood Partition Lawyer

The City of Inglewood is located in Los Angeles County, and is known for the Forum, which was the home of the Los Angeles Lakers for many years, and more recently for So Fi Stadium, which is the home of the Los Angeles Rams. Like many places throughout California, many Inglewood residents find themselves needing to move from a chaotic real estate situation to a fresh start with the equity from the property. When jointly owned real estate becomes too much of a problem, many people have found that a partition action can be a good solution. At that point, a Inglewood Partition Lawyer can be of great assistance. Generally, a partition action to be the best remedy for disputing co-owners in four broad categories:

• Split real estate dispute;
• Brother-Sister real estate dispute;
• Investor-Investor real estate dispute; and
• Significant other real estate dispute

A partition action generally has two basic stages. In the first stage, the court determines whether to partition the property, which usually includes the appointment of a partition referee and the referee's sale of the property. In the second stage, the referee divides the proceeds from the sale between the parties, and seeks a court order confirming this distribution. Recently, the California Court of Appeal addressed a referee's potential liability for their acts undertaken as part of the process in a case decided by the Third District Court of Appeal known as Holt v. Brock (2022) WL 17087787.

There, a brother and sister inherited property, and later the sister sought to partition the Property. The trial court in a partition action appointed a real estate broker, Charles Brock, to determine the listing price and sell the property at a 6% commission. After Brock listed the property for $882,000, one of the property's owners, Holt, offered to buy the Property for $1 million if Holt would reduce his commission to 3%. The partition referee refused to reduce his commission, and sold the Property for $882,000. Holt sued claiming that Brock violated fiduciary duties and committed other torts in performing his court-appointed role. Brock moved for summary judgment based on quasi-judicial immunity, which the trial court granted. Brock appealed.

The Court of Appeal affirmed, finding "quasi-judicial immunity extends judicial immunity 'to persons other than judges if those persons act in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity." (Howard .v Drapkin (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 843, 851.) The Court of Appeal stated that a "third-class of persons entitled to quasi-judicial immunity includes persons connected to the judicial process who are not public officials, arbitrators, or referees but who serve functions integral to the judicial process and act as arms of the court." (Howard, 222 Cal.App.3d at 855-857.) This includes persons appointed by the courts for their expertise. The Appellate Court determined that the partition referee, Brock, was acting in a quasi-judicial capacity due to that appointment, and thus had a right to quasi-judicial immunity.

In order to start resolving these situations, you should contact an experienced Ingelwood Partition Lawyer as soon as you are ready to start the next chapter of your life.